The glorious 25th of May
Right... I'm breaking my self-imposed silence to wish you all Truth, Freedom, Justice and a Hard Boiled Egg!
The day before yesterday, I took a break from studying to hand in my thesis (nothing to change anymore *wibble* - I'm convinced I left in hundreds of typos and mistakes in the chemical formulas) and pass by the cinema for a little Dan Brown. So now I feel the urge to type up a
Review: The Da Vinci Code
Let me start by saying that I quite liked the book, up to a certain point... I can even pinpoint the exact moment it went wrong for me: when Leigh Teabing stood in that doorway at Westminster Abbey and revealed himself as The Baddie. That's when I stopped taking all the crap Dan Brown had been trying to feed me - it was just too much! (And I really liked Teabing... why, why did he have to be the one to ruin it?)
But I'm not here to talk about the book, or only so far as it's related to the movie. Which, again, I quite liked. Or at least, I didn't dislike it with the same force as all the critics did. But upon arriving home, I made notes...
The Da Vinci Code started with a handicap: the clear visualisation of those spectators who had already read the book. That is to say: the casting of this movie was wrong on so many levels. Or was it?
Tom Hanks has been generally recognized as the worst possible Robert Langdon - but three minutes into the film, I had forgotten all the witty "Run, Robert, run!"-jokes I wanted to make. He gave Langdon a very believable Everyman-flair - he makes the claustrophobia, that comes over so artificial in the book, well... claustrophobic. And the hair didn't bother me at all.
As for Audrey Tautou... She'll always be Amélie Poulain for me, and Sophie Neveu was a redhead, but apart from that she did a nice job.
The one I really had a problem with, was Ian McKellen. Leigh Teabing, dear casting people, dear mother, dear everyone who's trying to tell me differently, is a portly readhead. Not a thin grey man with a big nose. I absolutely adore Ian McKellen as an actor, he was obviously having fun in this movie and he put down a wonderful character, but it wasn't Leigh Teabing. The End.
The others were rather well-casted, I thought. Jean Reno was spot on, Alfred Molina was bishop Aringarossa and Paul Bettany... Well, if what he was going for was a rabid albino, he got what he aimed for. Despite the Expression of Constant Surprise (tm Rupert Grint, I thought) and the outrrrrageous accent, he gave us a decent Silas. The glimpse of his naked behind didn't do him any harm, either.
Let's move on to the movie itself. The first thing that struck me, was that the script-writers didn't fall into the usual trap to let non-anglophones speak English when they're talking to each other. The French spoke French, which is as it should be.
What did bother me, were the flashbacks. They were too dark, too fast and too incomprehensible. I liked the idea of using flashbacks to illustrate the long explanations, but now they were only distracting.
However, most of the changes they made to the book were really effective. They got rid of the first cryptex, which would have drawn out the process of the treasure hunt, and they made Langdon advocate of the devil against Teabing, to get every viewpoint across in a limited time (but I've got a weak spot for advocates of the devil, it's my own favourite role in every discussion).
The only character that came off poorly in this adaptation is Sophie. Suddenly, she forgot everything she ever learned about codebreaking (whatever happened to Cryptologist Neveu? Left her Independent-Woman-gene at the Louvre, did she?), only to tag along with Robert Langdon, running through Paris and London in extremely uncomfortable high heeled shoes, letting him solve all the clues and finally ending up under a Very English Blanket.
But that last scene at Roslyn Chapel wasn't really a success in any case. What happened to Sophie's brother? Why did the tension between Langdon and Sophie fall flat on its back? And most importantly: why did the Priory members advance on Sophie Neveu like zombies from a bad B-film? If that's protection for them, I'd hate to fall on their bad side...
All in all an enjoyable evening out - not life-changing, but enough to forget for a couple of hours that you have to get back to your courses in the morning. But I stick to my guns: that was not Leigh Teabing!
I rest my case.
After these ramblings, I bid you all good night...
The day before yesterday, I took a break from studying to hand in my thesis (nothing to change anymore *wibble* - I'm convinced I left in hundreds of typos and mistakes in the chemical formulas) and pass by the cinema for a little Dan Brown. So now I feel the urge to type up a
Review: The Da Vinci Code
Let me start by saying that I quite liked the book, up to a certain point... I can even pinpoint the exact moment it went wrong for me: when Leigh Teabing stood in that doorway at Westminster Abbey and revealed himself as The Baddie. That's when I stopped taking all the crap Dan Brown had been trying to feed me - it was just too much! (And I really liked Teabing... why, why did he have to be the one to ruin it?)
But I'm not here to talk about the book, or only so far as it's related to the movie. Which, again, I quite liked. Or at least, I didn't dislike it with the same force as all the critics did. But upon arriving home, I made notes...
The Da Vinci Code started with a handicap: the clear visualisation of those spectators who had already read the book. That is to say: the casting of this movie was wrong on so many levels. Or was it?
Tom Hanks has been generally recognized as the worst possible Robert Langdon - but three minutes into the film, I had forgotten all the witty "Run, Robert, run!"-jokes I wanted to make. He gave Langdon a very believable Everyman-flair - he makes the claustrophobia, that comes over so artificial in the book, well... claustrophobic. And the hair didn't bother me at all.
As for Audrey Tautou... She'll always be Amélie Poulain for me, and Sophie Neveu was a redhead, but apart from that she did a nice job.
The one I really had a problem with, was Ian McKellen. Leigh Teabing, dear casting people, dear mother, dear everyone who's trying to tell me differently, is a portly readhead. Not a thin grey man with a big nose. I absolutely adore Ian McKellen as an actor, he was obviously having fun in this movie and he put down a wonderful character, but it wasn't Leigh Teabing. The End.
The others were rather well-casted, I thought. Jean Reno was spot on, Alfred Molina was bishop Aringarossa and Paul Bettany... Well, if what he was going for was a rabid albino, he got what he aimed for. Despite the Expression of Constant Surprise (tm Rupert Grint, I thought) and the outrrrrageous accent, he gave us a decent Silas. The glimpse of his naked behind didn't do him any harm, either.
Let's move on to the movie itself. The first thing that struck me, was that the script-writers didn't fall into the usual trap to let non-anglophones speak English when they're talking to each other. The French spoke French, which is as it should be.
What did bother me, were the flashbacks. They were too dark, too fast and too incomprehensible. I liked the idea of using flashbacks to illustrate the long explanations, but now they were only distracting.
However, most of the changes they made to the book were really effective. They got rid of the first cryptex, which would have drawn out the process of the treasure hunt, and they made Langdon advocate of the devil against Teabing, to get every viewpoint across in a limited time (but I've got a weak spot for advocates of the devil, it's my own favourite role in every discussion).
The only character that came off poorly in this adaptation is Sophie. Suddenly, she forgot everything she ever learned about codebreaking (whatever happened to Cryptologist Neveu? Left her Independent-Woman-gene at the Louvre, did she?), only to tag along with Robert Langdon, running through Paris and London in extremely uncomfortable high heeled shoes, letting him solve all the clues and finally ending up under a Very English Blanket.
But that last scene at Roslyn Chapel wasn't really a success in any case. What happened to Sophie's brother? Why did the tension between Langdon and Sophie fall flat on its back? And most importantly: why did the Priory members advance on Sophie Neveu like zombies from a bad B-film? If that's protection for them, I'd hate to fall on their bad side...
All in all an enjoyable evening out - not life-changing, but enough to forget for a couple of hours that you have to get back to your courses in the morning. But I stick to my guns: that was not Leigh Teabing!
I rest my case.
After these ramblings, I bid you all good night...